


an axe you break down doors with in an emergency

by alasse



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Between Episodes, Episode Tag, Gen, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-31 21:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18322607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alasse/pseuds/alasse
Summary: The thing was, when it came down to it, even in his darkest fucking moments, Quentin always thought he’d make it out. He had before, so many times, fought so many monsters inside himself before even getting to the ones in Fillory and the Neitherlands and the Abyss.Quentin thinking about hope - and lack thereof - because stopping the Monster and saving Eliot is taking everything he has. Set between episode 4.10 and 4.11 (using a line from the 4.11 trailer, so it has those spoilers).





	an axe you break down doors with in an emergency

**Author's Note:**

> Title and quote from Rebecca Solnit. I just couldn't stop thinking about Q's face, at the end of 4.10, so - here are a bunch of my feels about it.

“Look, once I finally get this goddess shit straight, I need you. To help remind me what it’s like to give a shit about other people. To want to risk your life to save them.”

Quentin looked at Julia, trying to find a way to tell her, to make her understand that, whatever it was that had kept him hoping all these years - throughout a hellish adolescence of figuring out your brain can be your own worst enemy and no cleverness, no math, no reason can really reason away chronic depression; throughout feeling like he didn’t belong, like he was half a step out of tune with anybody else; throughout finding magic and magic being an _asshole_ and losing magic and trying to find it again - whatever it was that had kept him hoping was almost gone. 

Because they’d tried so hard, but the Library had the magic. And the Monster had Eliot. And all their best guesses, their hardest shots - they kept going sour. And Quentin was just so tired. Tired of trying and fucking up, tired of hoping and getting shot down. By magic, by Alice, by Eliot, by life… 

The thing was, when it came down to it, even in his darkest fucking moments, Quentin always thought he’d make it out. He had before, so many times, fought so many monsters inside himself before even getting to the ones in Fillory and the Neitherlands and the Abyss. So he’d always had hope. Not blind optimism, not an easy, sugary sort of feeling, no; _real_ hope, that hurts inside, that has an edge and keeps prodding you forward even when you want to stop, that makes you know somewhere in your bones that it can be better and get better but the only way it’s going to get better is if you try, if you cry, if you bleed a little, because life is sharp. 

Hope was magic being real, but a real fucking pain in the ass. Something he had to fail at, fuck up, and get better at.

Hope was Alice not being dead, but a niffin. Bitter and unfair and painful, but something he could do. 

Hope was magic being gone, but finding a ridiculous quest to get it back. Finding miracles in the dark - Julia, his dad’s remission, an entire life with Eliot. 

And he’d thought it was the same, you know? Eliot not dead, Eliot alive in there somewhere, something concrete to do and save and work towards. But every god they helped kill and every book they read and every single way they tried to bargain with the Monster to keep his body safe and sound, it was taking every last bit of hope Quentin had left, because it somehow felt harder than it ever had. And maybe it was precisely because it was Eliot that it was so hard - before, he’d had Eliot giving him drinks and promising him seduction and giving him a hug and fucking _living an entire life_ with him, a spark no matter how dark things got. And now all he had was someone wearing Eliot’s face and using his eyes and his hands - to threaten, to kill, to break. 

As he tried to figure out a way to put everything he was feeling into words, though, to tell Julia that he was all hoped out, that he didn’t know how to be that for her or for anyone any more, the Head Librarian knocked on the door, galvanizing Kady and Alice and bringing in a whole host of extra problems - the Library hoarding magic? Fucking great - and Quentin swallowed it down. 

Who really cared if Quentin Coldwater gave up, anyway? The story was so much bigger than him, there was so much more at play, so many more things to solve, so many other people much more talented and meant for this - nobody really needed him to hope. All he was, in the end, was Jane Chatwin’s stubborn tomato, a guy who’d put so much of his heart and soul in a fictional world because the real one hurt that he happened to know enough random details about it to be useful. 

And then Margo came back. With a pair of axes, of all things. And sharp, sharp eyes. Eyes sharp enough to see him, to understand what it was to miss Eliot - who else really could, in the end? - and to set him straight.

“Grow a pair of tits, Coldwater.”

And Quentin felt it again. Sharp, edged, ragged.

Hope.

 

+++

 

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_“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.”_

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End file.
